Monday, March 25, 2013

“The curious
never get old.” It’s a line from a song by Chris Brown and Kate Fenner, who
were playlist mainstays on my campus radio program (1992-2002). I thought of
that phrase often when remembering my friend Julia Ward, who passed away last
week after her third bout with cancer. She was 52. She leaves a devoted
husband, two incredible girls in their early 20s, a teenage boy (who I sadly
never got to know), and many, many devout friends drawn to her spirit.

What follows is what I read at her wake in Guelph on
Saturday. I was the only speaker who wasn’t a family member, neighbour or close
friend. In some ways, what I said was selfish: what this woman meant to me, me,
me, someone who probably knew her less than everyone else in the room. I wasn’t
there to watch her struggles of the last five years. We never had conversations
lasting several hours. We only broke bread on a handful of occasions. And yet,
I think it says something about a person when she manages to touch someone who
barely knew her, and that’s what I wanted to articulate.

I’m posting this here because I think our relationship also
speaks to the relationship between a fan and any artist or writer or
broadcaster attempting to communicate to the world—what it means to get a fan
letter, what it means to connect a face to a voice, what it means to find out
that someone found that bottle you tossed in the ocean and took your message to
heart.

--

I first met Julia because she was a fan of my campus radio
show. Hosting and programming a campus radio show is, for many and certainly
for me , a very personal endeavour. In many ways, you’re baring your many
idiosyncrasies and tastes for the world to hear. You’re inviting them into your
bedroom, your living room, your head. Whatever is going on in your life is
bound to be reflected in your choices. It can be an isolating experience: just
you and the mic and some records in the booth, with no possible way to know how
many people—if, in fact, any at all—are listening to you.

The only time you really find out is when someone picks up
the phone and calls in a request, or when, once a year, you turn into a
huckster and beg your hypothetical audience to donate to the station during a
fundraising drive. Mostly, it’s just people you know on the other end of the
line, people who already like the music you do, people you work with, people
you drink with. But I also had Julia.

For whatever reason, Julia was a total stranger who loved my
show. We didn’t have any mutual friends—we still don’t, really. She was 10 years older than me. She had a real
job and two young girls to raise; I had nothing of the sort. I suspect, as I
now know about people over 30, that though she still loved music passionately,
it was harder and harder to find reliable sources of new inspiration. When you
find one, it can become a lifeline.

Having a fan outside of your own experience is a huge boost.
It means you’re not just operating in a vacuum. It means you’re actually
connecting with people. Julia called in requests and pledged generously to the
show. But I’d also made a new friend. It’s not like we saw each other socially,
but whenever we’d talk on the request line or see each other downtown there would
be this unspoken shared acknowledgment that was more than just a casual
greeting. It was: “Oh yes, you—I get you. You and I, we’re the same tribe. You’re
one of the good ones.”

I wasn’t the only one. Tellingingly enough, she had a
similar relationship with a host of another morning radio show on CFRU. Years later, that host and I got together. A few years after that, we moved
in together. A few years after that, we had a child together. Julia was always
excited about every one of these developments, and my fondest memories of her
now are of when we’d visit her as a family in the past two years.

She always had that glow. She always had a giving spirit.
She always had that look in her eye that said, “I believe in you.” I felt like
Julia Ward was always on my side, rooting for me. And I feel incredibly richer
for that. I know I’m not the only one.

This
Icelandic group claim to be the only organ quartet in the world—who's going to
argue? Joined by a propulsive rock drummer, the keyboardists play every kind of
antiquated synth or organ they can get their hands on, sing through Vocoders,
avoid pre-programmed tracks, and write sci-fi stadium anthems. This is not the
slick techno of Daft Punk, nor is it the improvisational raw synth rock of
Toronto's Holy Fuck. This is Kraftwerk on steroids. Yes, it's a schtick, and
your tolerance for it over the course of an album may be limited, but rarely
does keyboard music sound this visceral. They're making their first trip here
for Canadian Music Fest later this month, with three shows in Toronto. Roofs
will be raised. (March 14)

Download: “Konami,”
“Polynesia,” “Macht Parat Den Apparat”

Devendra Banhart - Mala
(Nonesuch)

In the early 2000s, there
are few artist who squandered such great potential as Devendra Banhart. With a
wonderfully elastic, Jeff Buckley-esque voice, an inventive approach to lo-fi
recording, quirky songs and a pronounced Latin influence, his first three
albums were magical. Of the three albums that followed, two of them were
indulgent, silly, often embarrassing, and eclectic to the point of confusion.
If Banhart has fans left still ready to follow him, they deserve to be
rewarded. And now they have.

Mala was made by just
Banhart and long-time sideman Noah Georgeson in a home studio where they
purposely tried to limit their options. The result is a sonically consistent,
playful recording that plays up to all of Banhart's many strengths and
eccentricities. It’s also a focused collection of solid songs that give his
voice a chance to shine. Latin rhythms, garage rock, electro dreaminess and
plaintive acoustic tracks blend perfectly together in a subdued,
experimental eclectic vibe not unlike Yo La Tengo—in fact, this may be a better
Yo La Tengo album than that band's latest. Even the deadpan duet with his
fiancée, entitled “Your Fine Petting Duck,” which starts out as an acoustic
tarantella before somehow morphing into a techno pop track sung in German,
somehow makes perfect sense in the context of the album—which is saying a lot.
(March 14)

It was almost 10 years ago
that every new band seemed to have “wolf” in their name. This month, for
whatever reason, the debut albums by Belle Starr, The Belle Game and Wild Belle
all came out within a week of each other. Though they couldn’t be more
stylistically different, it’s still easy to get them confused.

Wild Belle is the Chicago
brother-sister duo of Elliot and Natalie Bergman, who play an odd, modern
hippie/hipster take on roots reggae. Elliot plays baritone saxophone, all
manners of keyboards and electric kalimba; Natalie is the disaffected, flat
vocalist who also handles some keyboards. How they ended up signing to a major
label is a mystery—did they have the same Sony A&R rep as synth-pop weirdos
MGMT? The Talking Heads’ rhythm section, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, get a
shout-out in the thank yous, and it’s easy to hear the connection with their
Tom Tom Club. While the sound is initially intriguing—especially the kalimbas
and baritone saxophone clashing with the lo-fi electro reggae rhythms—it wears
thin quickly, primarily due to Natalie’s limited vocal range.

Vocals are not an issue
for Belle Starr, which unites three Canadian fiddle players—one of whom,
Miranda Mulholland, has played extensively with Great Lake Swimmers in recent
years—who also sing gloriously together and, um, happen to be incredibly easy
on the eyes, almost as if someone purposely put these three women together to
target the CBC and folk festival demographic. Sadly, “New Girl Now” is not a
Honeymoon Suite cover, though they do tackle songs by Bruce Springsteen and
Justin Rutledge—which is a risky venture, because the originals don’t approach
the same craft.

The Belle Game is a new
Vancouver band that sounds like—a Vancouver band. Rainy-day ’80s noir pop never
dies in that town, and powerful vocalist Andrea Lo soars over low-key
instrumentation (pianos, vibes, trumpet, strings) that occasionally swell into
the dramatic and anthemic. There’s a lazy, hazy air to the recording, not
unlike that on recent records by neighbours Brasstronaut or Kathryn Calder.
There are elements of equal greatness here, but this is still a band finding its
feet. (March 28)

Young Montreal group Blue Hawaii
features vocalist Raphaelle Standell-Preston of Braids and her partner,
one-time Berlin resident Alex Cowan, both part of the same scene that spawned
Grimes (a former roommate), and who are currently opening for Montreal buzz
band Purity Ring.

The vocals are often clipped and the
melodies fractured, though nonetheless gorgeous throughout. The beats are
glitchy yet deep, not a common combination in experimental pop bands using
electronics, nor is it particularly easy to pull off—but if anyone can, it will
be a group from Montreal (or Berlin), where electronic music is part of the
lingua franca.

There are no sappy anthems, and given the
choice between an obvious answer and colourful abstraction, they opt for the
latter every time. There are no big hooks, but none are needed; it's easy to be
carried adrift on the lush harmonies and lulling beats. There are obvious nods
to Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush and Bjork here—even a dash of very early
Eurythmics at their most experimental—with modern R&B programming and James
Blake-ish abstraction. Untogether is a bold, stunning and beautiful album, and
enough of a tabula rasa to translate into any language.

Somewhat similar is Mozart's Sister,
the project of Montreal's Caila Thompson Hannant. While her approach is just as
left-field, she's much more interested in pop hooks and conventional vocal
bravado--which she's already put to work in her supporting role in Montreal
party band Think About Life (she was also one half of Shapes and Sizes, who
were signed to Sufjan Stevens's label, and she played bass in Miracle
Fortress). This EP puts a polish on some earlier, Internet-only tracks and
shows that she's thinking bigger than just a bedroom project. (March 7)

When the 66-year-old David Bowie
announced his first album in 10 years, there was much rejoicing. But wait—has
anyone but the most fervent fans listened to anything Bowie has done in the
last 20 years? Were we all really expecting greatness from a once-great artist
who, while still exhibiting excellent taste in his public endorsements of new
artists, has done precious little to enhance his discography after his first
two decades of classic records?

There's plenty about this record
that justifies the hype: Bowie is in fine voice and the fiery arrangements show
that he's not ready to mellow out any time soon. He may open the album singing,
"Here I am not quite dying / my body left to rot in a hollow
tree," but you'd never guess that from his performance. The production by
long-time producer Tony Visconti casts off any trend-chasing attempt at
modernity and hearkens back to his late '70s recordings—like, oh I don't know,
maybe 1977's Heroes, the album cover of which is recycled here in full, with
the title scratched out and a large white box over the 35-year-old image of
Bowie. It's almost as if Bowie was saying, "I know everyone is going to
listen to this digitally anyway, so why bother with a new album cover?"

Bowie has announced he's not
going to tour—perhaps ever again—and because fans had given up on the idea of
new material, he's free to do whatever he likes. More power to him. Ultimately,
though, that makes it disappointing that a), he's mostly content to retread
past glories instead of going out on a limb, and b), that the songs here are
merely okay--if anyone other than Bowie was singing them, it's unlikely anyone
would care. The Next Day may well be the best Bowie album in 20 years, but just
like everything else he's put out in that time, it's primarily for the
diehards. (March 14)

Download: “Dirty Boys,” “The
Stars (Are Out Tonight),” “(You Will) Set the World on Fire”

Billy Bragg - Tooth
and Nail (Dine Alone)

Though political
folk singer Billy Bragg has been incredibly active in the last two decades—as
an activist, touring act and author—fans are unlikely to recall any of his new
songs that match the power of his work in the ’80s. The notable exception was
when he teamed up with Wilco to set music to Woody Guthrie poems, on the highly
successful Mermaid Avenue series.

Bragg returns to
Americana here, recruiting producer Joe Henry and some key sidemen (pedal steel
player Greg Leisz, Canadian bassist David Piltch) to help him make a full-blown
Neil Young-style country album, written and recorded as quickly as possible in
Henry’s California house. Bragg’s voice has reached a lovely, low
maturity—albeit still with the heavy Essex accent that is his trademark—perfect
for the tear-in-his-beer heartbreakers he’s written this time out, the kind of
classic country ballads Elvis Costello keeps trying, and largely failing, to
write. Bragg is in such fine form here that he even pulls off the hardest trick
in the book: writing a song about songwriting that actually manages to be
universal and emotionally poignant (“Handyman Blues”).

Bragg can’t avoid
the political, of course, though recently he’s redirected his topical songs
away from his albums and made them available as instant downloads. Here,
however, the pointed “There Will Be a Reckoning” succeeds as a timeless
all-purpose anthem, while “No One Knows Nothing Anymore” somehow sidesteps
becoming a tired tirade from a grumpy old man.

Determined not to
be a total sad sack or doomsayer, Bragg ends the album singing (and whistling) “Tomorrow
Will Be a Better Day.” And no doubt it will be, if this album is indicative of
a creative rebirth for Billy Bragg. (March 21)

Interesting
album title, for a trio that took two decade-apart increments to bury
long-simmering resentments among the original members. Last year a reunion tour
by this '80s Kamloops, B.C., group garnered rave reviews,
and that energy obviously poured into recording sessions with producer Darryl
Neudorf (Neko Case, Two Hours Traffic)--an energy that wasn't necessarily there
the last time the two songwriters, Tom Hooper and Kevin Kane, got together in
2000. As contemporaries of R.E.M., it's great to hear a band that didn't burn
out by sticking around too long, so the Grapes' particular take on new wave
Byrdsian paisley pop sounds remarkably rejuvenated here. Kane and Hooper split
the song list down the middle:
the March break pop
anthem “Mexico” soars; the acoustic ballad “Take On the Day” is a worthy
successor to earlier triumph “All the Things I Wasn't”; the psychedelic ballad “I'm
Lost” is luxurious; the harmonies throughout, of course, are magnificent. Well
worth burying the hatchet for, and another fantastic chapter for a band who
were dangerously close to being a distant memory for many. (March 21)

Download:
“Mexico,” “Take on the Day,” “Waiting to Fly”

How to Destroy Angels - Welcome
Oblivion (Sony)

Trent Reznor announced recently that
he's resurrecting Nine Inch Nails after a four-year hiatus. In the meantime,
he's been focusing on film scores—his work on The Social Network bagged him an
Oscar—and this new project with his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, only now
releasing their debut. “The more things change / everything stays the
same,” she sings, and nothing here is a radical departure from Reznor's past,
other than the fact that his vocals are not front and centre, and the overall
sound is moody rather than menacing. Reznor's main strength continues to be as
a producer first and foremost: he's capable of crafting creepy but astounding
aural environments. As a songwriter, however, there's very little to latch on
to here--which is a real shame considering the possibilities Maandig brings to
the group. Perhaps Reznor is best at soundtracks and Nine Inch Nails, and not
much in between. (March 7)

Download: “Ice Age,” “Keep It
Together,” “The Loop Closes”

Low - The Invisible
Way (Sub Pop)

When you’ve been a
band for 20 years (and a married couple for longer), sometimes you need a
friend and fan to come in and remind you what you do best. And so after three
albums of necessary sonic detours—some of which took their trademarked hushed
sound and dead-slow tempos and introduced crashing electric guitars, uptempo
numbers and electronics—Low called on Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy to sit in the
producer’s chair.

Tweedy had invited
Low to open a Wilco tour several years back, which means that unlike previous
outside producers (Steve Albini, Dave Fridmann) he witnessed their strengths at
work night after night: what better prep before heading into the studio? That
means the band has never before sounded this focused; being the hushed
minimalists they are, they've always been meticulous and deliberate, but Tweedy
ensures that they never settle for succeeding on mood alone. These songs sound
refined, crafted. Hence The Invisible Way is, perhaps, if not the best
album of Low’s career (that would be the sprawling The Great Destroyer), it's
certainly the most consistently strong.

Drummer Mimi Parker
takes the lead more often than usual here, and the frequent occasions where
husband Alan takes the high falsetto harmony above her are as transcendent as
always. Only the penultimate track, “On My Own,” a dirge-y, noisy number
with a monotonous, endless closing refrain of the phrase “happy birthday"
threatens to derail the entire album, before Mimi returns with a minimal piano
song that concludes everything on yet another lovely note—and there could never
be too many of those on any given Low album. (March 21)

Download: “Plastic
Cup,” “So Blue,” “Just Make It Stop”

Palma Violets - 180 (Rough Trade)

Here's a next-big-thing rock act from
Britain that actually sounds like they can deliver. Obviously recorded live—tempos
lurch and accelerate, and they play with the energy of four young dreamers
breathing down each others' necks mere inches away from each other—180 doesn't
boast any fancy production tricks or unusual sounds; everything here could be
sourced from a local vintage store; every song could be sourced from vintage
records, for that matter. Any group of geeks who meet playing Clash songs
around a campfire at a music festival (in this case, Reading) could arguably
achieve the same thing, but Palma Violets have the garage-rock Holy Trinity of
swagger, soul and—for the most part on this somewhat uneven album, which
stumbles toward its finish line—songcraft, immediately elevating them above
other pretenders to the throne. Lou Reed turned 71 this week; these young turks
could be his grandkids, doing him proud. (March 7)

Download: “Best of Friends,” “Step Up
the Cool Cats”

Rhye
- Woman (Universal)

The makeout
album of summer 2013? If the lavender and chamomile tea leaves in your cup
started singing softly in your ear, it would sound a lot like this. The
album begins like a vintage Disney film, with a string section playing an
opening theme before being joined by low brass, swooping harps and a wordless
choir. Then the soft, sexy beats come in, and sweet nothings whispered by an
androgynous voice with Brazilian bossa nova detachment—which is one way of
saying it’s a man who sounds an awful lot like a woman. And not just any woman,
but Sade, whose shadow looms large over everything on the debut by this hotly
tipped duo—one of whom is the Toronto singer Mike Milosh, who toiled in
obscurity (with three albums to his name) before hooking up with a Danish
producer in L.A. before building considerable online buzz in the 12 months
before this album appeared. It's like The XX settling down on a Caribbean
island, or Feist setting up shop in a spa town after Let It Die. There's no
faulting the mood set here, though it's impossible to imagine ever listening to
it in the foreground outside of candlelit dinners and film placements. (March 21)

Download: “Open,”
“3 Days,” “One of Those Summer Days”

Sound City - Various
Artists (Sony)

Dave Grohl is a
first-class geek. Why else would the Foo Fighters founder make his debut as a
documentary film director with a movie about a sound mixing board—not an
artist, not a label, not even a studio, but a piece of technological equipment
that means nothing to anyone who's not a professional musician? The board in
question was used to make classic records by Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Paul
McCartney, Tom Petty and others, including Nirvana for Nevermind, which is when
Grohl's fascination began. When the studio housing it went out of business,
Grohl had it shipped to his garage and invited some of the film's interview
subjects over to record new songs. You can't fault Grohl for his affability and
intentions: who else would put '80s pop star Rick Springfield and the vocalist
from L.A. hardcore punk band Fear on the same album? Who else would think to
match the singer from Slipknot with the guitarists from Cheap Trick and Kyuss?
Most importantly, who else could convince Paul McCartney to write and record a
new song with the surviving members of Nirvana?

The McCartney song is a
delicious WTF moment that actually works, strange as it is to hear the
71-year-old Beatle screaming, "Mama,
set me free!" (Is his mama even still alive?) The same is true of a
surprisingly muscular Rick Springfield, who does more than just triumph over
low expectations: he kicks some serious ass. Sadly, the same cannot be said of
almost everyone else here. Stevie Nicks sounds great, and writes a new
minor-key song with Grohl perfectly suited for her, yet the lyrics are
frighteningly awful. The rhythm section of Rage Against the Machine prove,
after more than a decade as Audioslave, that they've lost any groove they once
had. And everyone just sounds like watered down versions of their normal
selves, including Grohl. Stunt-casting supergroups rarely work; this album is
no exception. (March 14)

It's not just electronic acts from
Montreal making waves; Suuns accomplish just as much with only one keyboard in
their arsenal, on top of a live rhythm section and dreamy guitars. They're
rooted in '70s German art rock, with metronomic rhythms and lightly
arpeggiating melodic lines underscoring disaffected vocals; much more soulful
than shoegaze, more electrifying than the electronic crowd, and, on “Bambi,”
capable of some an icy yet visceral post-punk disco throwdown. Singer Ben
Shemie communicates using slurred, monotonous vocals with major attitude,
recalling the British band Clinic, who made one great album before spinning
their wheels for the next decade; this is the album Clinic should have made
years ago. Suuns add some essential rock'n'roll energy into Montreal's
avant-garde scene, and they're hitting their stride on this, their second
album. (March 7)

Download: “2020,” “Minor Work,” “Bambi”

Justin
Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience (Sony)

Ever since
Michael Jackson’s death, everyone agrees it’s unlikely anyone will ever replace
him or replicate his success. Which is true, for myriad reasons. But if anyone
is going to come close, it’s Justin Timberlake—and this is his Thriller.

Timberlake’s
appeal is obvious: other than his looks, his dancing and his boy band history
(’N SYNC had the biggest-selling album of the 2000s), his elastic, falsetto
voice continues to improve, he’s pushing himself musically, and he’s got his
own Quincy Jones—producer mastermind Timbaland—in his corner, turning
traditional R&B on its head, nodding to the past and vividly envisioning a
bold new future.

Timberlake
takes his time: not only did it take him seven years to follow up FutureSex/LoveSounds,
but the opening track here, the Al Green/D’Angelo channelling “Pusher Love
Girl,” takes eight minutes to unfold—one of three tracks here to do so. Nothing
about this album is indulgent, however: songs are suites that shift gears with
no shortage of ear candy colouring every corner of the sonic spectrum.

“Don’t Hold
the Wall” opens with doo-wop harmony before introducing Indian percussion and
samples set to a Southern hip-hop beat and crickets in the background; four
minutes later it all breaks down leaving only an Exorcist-style minor
piano key motif with a child’s voice, before the whole thing halts for a
sparse, bass-heavy techno beat that sounds a lot like driving through late ‘80s
Detroit. “Let That Groove
Get In” has a New Orleans groove executed by electronic drums, a tight horn
section and a sample of field recordings from Burkina Faso. The one downtempo
song, “Blue Ocean Floor,” features seven minutes of backward-tracked swells and
Timberlake in choir-boy mode; it’s entirely enchanting. Lead single “Suit and
Tie” has a snare drum that sounds like a submarine ping, and harp-like piano
sweeps run like an ostinato throughout. It’s hard to imagine any other modern
pop artist attempting such ambition while still making catchy, accessible
music.

Much of the
credit, of course, goes to Timbaland, who after being ubiquitous in 2006—behind
the boards for Timberlake and Nelly Furtado—managed to fall off completely,
being almost entirely MIA in recent years. This is as much a comeback for him
as it is for Timberlake, and it sounds like he’s been bottling up seven years
worth of his best beats. Maybe Timberlake had a contract specifying first right
of refusal.

The only
place Timberlake stumbles is lyrically. There’s nothing wrong with an album of
silly love songs, including one about travelling in a “Spaceship Coupe”—which
is no longer science fiction when sung by one of the only pop stars who could
actually afford extraterrestrial travel. But Timberlake has more than a few
laugh-out-loud moments here: “If you’ll be my strawberry bubblegum, then I’ll be
your blueberry body pie”?? And what’s with “Suit and Tie,” where he chants, “I be on my suit and tie / s--t tie, s--t tie”? Thankfully,
there’s too much else going on to ever notice or care.

Rihanna
might be the defining R&B artist of the last 10 years because of her
endless stream of #1 hits, but you’d never listen to one of her albums all the
way through. Timberlake wants and gets pop thrills, but he also knows what it’s
like to crawl inside a rich musical world for over an hour. Apparently he’s
ready to release another album later this year, but we’re going to absorbing
this one for a long, long time. (March 28)